You hate to see it.
A Minnesota woman came across a wild scene back in late October, when she discovered two whitetail bucks dead in a lake near her home.
And the wildest part?
The bucks’ antlers were locked to each other.
According to Field & Stream, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources believes that the two bucks were sparring during the rut, ultimately leading to their antlers getting intertwined with each other.
During the spar, they ultimately ended up in the lake somehow, and they were never able to untangle, resulting in both of them drowning.
The homeowner discovered the scene the next day.
The woman took some photos, and told a local radio station that she had been seeing three bucks on her property in the days leading up to the incident, until two of them went missing.
She said her yard was filled with scrapes and tracks, and it was pretty clear that these two big boys were beefin’ near the lake shore on the day she discovered the two bucks.
MDNR spokesman Joe Albert told the outlet:
“A tip call came in to our poaching hotline and two conservation officers responded on the scene. They put a rope around the deer and used an ATV to pull them up to shore.”
Albert added that the meat was still fresh enough that it could be salvaged when conservation officers pulled the two deer out the next day:
“Somebody was there that wanted the meat. So our officers issued a possession tag, and they left the deer with them.”
And as far as the two bucks’ antlers getting tangled up, Albert says it’s something they deal with annually:
“It’s something we deal with every single year. This kind of thing is bound to happen when bucks are out battling for does and territory.”
Man, just a reminder that nature is cruel, but thankfully, the meat didn’t go to waste.
